


should've held on

by yenso



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, El Lord KE, Last Kiss, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22955716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yenso/pseuds/yenso
Summary: Within the final days before the last sacrifice is given for Elrios, before he completely loses himself to the holy, glorious El, he asks about love.
Relationships: Elsword/Chung Seiker, Knight Emperor/Comet Crusader
Kudos: 25





	should've held on

His memory loss worsens.

The white, blue-tipped streaks catch up to his red faster and faster in a losing race with every day, a race that has been decided from the moment it had begun. Where fire once was laid an ugly cyan that pierced their fluorescent color into every state that would come across him, squeezing in a vice grip the harrowing reminder that this person was the last sacrifice for the greater good of the world. 

“Chung Seiker,” Elsword calls his name, seated in a curved, elegant wooden chair with hands clasped on the table. Hearing it, Chung stills, back turned and pausing in his movements of making tea for his friend. His eyes lower, cream blonde hair cascading over the frame of his face. How much longer left? How much longer until the day he asks, ‘what’s your name again?’ and shatters his already broken heart into mere fragments of fragments? 

“What is it, Els?” 

Chung can feel his stare focused on his back. The blinding blue of his eyes peering into him, emptier than just yesterday, reaching out for some kind of _something_ not even Chung could figure out. Just a small intrigue was the only remotely readable thing about him even, confirmed when Chung tilts his head just enough to look at Elsword. He forces a small smile. 

Elsword’s brows furrow, scrunch in themselves. He leans forward in his seat, one hand moving to rest against his thigh. Chung exhales a rattled breath, low and weak at the face Elsword makes at him, trying to align it with the expressions he remembered just months ago. Where he had looked at Chung with a similar look, but a brighter, more sincere flame in crimson eyes when he asked, just nights before That, “what’s bothering you?” before Chung could think of not even the smallest white lie to trick him. 

He resumes making the tea for two, turns his head away and shaking off the thoughts of somehow, terribly, guiltily, better days compared to the utopian hell he found himself locked in. 

“What were we?”

Chung shifts his feet nervously, prodding the question further as if it were a demon, “What do you mean?”

“Our connection to each other.” 

“Connection...?” The guardian’s puzzlement is carefully placed. Anticipating with no ounce of excitement, a wariness only worthy of being filled with Fear in itself. Their ‘connection’ could be defined in many ways. There was their connection to each other in battles, where they both manned the spearhead of the formation, perhaps their shared goals... their— 

“What was ‘us’ besides fighting the demons together?” 

Their intimacy behind the brave fronts they put up.

Chung’s breath catches itself in his throat. Lodges there, stuck in the middle, the world fogging for a brief moment as he stares at the tea with wide eyes. The ‘us’ connection between Elsword Sieghart and Chung Seiker.

No...

No, no, no—

Oh Elria, _no…_

His thoughts come to an immediate halt. Chung’s hands tremble over the teacups. He takes careful breaths, though ragged and shallow, and listens to his heart gain two more cracks. Hears the small chip, emptiness, then finally feels the blow knocking the breath out of his lungs, makes his legs weak and fragile, then places the teacups alone in favor of tightly gripping the counter. Of course. Of course, Elsword would forget their day eventually. Yet even if he knew, even if he knew he should be anticipating it with the rate Elsword’s heart and memories left him, the more of himself he gave to restoring the Giant El once and for all, it makes the guardian sick. 

Chung firmly presses his lips together. He wants to vomit. He wants to leave, not give Elsword an answer at all, snap and ask _how_ could he just pop that question to him when he could have asked any other person from the El Search Party? Why would he ask Chung himself of all people?

But no; Elsword was as blunt as the back of his sword, and always made sure he asked the people involved only, even like this. And it made sense to do so; there would be no mistake in that case, as Elsword had always believed. He remembers, so clearly he could take himself back to that day vividly and view it in movie format it if he just closed his eyes at night, the bashed smile Elsword wore, the way his hands shook in such nervousness when he took up Chung’s armored hand and pressed them to his lips in unspoken question, the hope in his eyes practically blinding. 

The bottom of Chung’s lip quivers. 

_"You’re so corny, Els!"_

_"Hey, don’t laugh! I’ve never done this before!"_

_"Pfft, sorry, sorry! I’m just..."_

“W-Why do you ask?” Chung forces out, swallowing down the break in his voice. A cover was all it was meant to be, but as soon as he says it he regrets it. He feels as if he had just, without a doubt, swallowed himself whole, already knowing what the answer to that would be. The answer that he grows so tired of hearing, the same reasons that pricked needles in his chest and salt in his eyes, yet is told timelessly over and over again because Elsword was just that kind of person. But it’s fine. Because Elsword saved the world. So— so it’s fine. Refusing to meet Elsword’s cold, gradually changing cyan eyes, he fixates himself on staring at the teacups, placing bags in each. 

“I was thinking about my memories with you,” Elsword responds, fingers drumming against the base of his thigh, “but there’s a gap in them. Like something... happened, but I—“

_“Did you know Lanox has this really nice restaurant?” A younger, dreamlike but a red version of Elsword flickers, back when he was still chasing after the shadow of his sister and before he became a transitioning palette into white and cyan._

Enough. The El’s guardian wouldn’t recognize any of that anymore. 

“…Don’t remember,” Chung finishes, bitter to the core and laughs from the sinking, empty pit of his stomach. 

Elsword is silent for a moment, then dips his head and murmurs an apology. He’s grown quieter and quieter as the days passed and his memory slips out from his fingers more and more like washed grains of sand, the fire growing weaker with every ticking clock and Chung feels so incredibly helpless and weak as he stands here, the newly-appointed El Master of water, observing with tied hands the process of a human with a heart too large for the world turn into a shell more hollow than the canyons in Lanox for a big, dumb rock.

But he still saved the world, and everyone can see their own missions to completion now. So it’s... fine. 

“It’s just...” Elsword awkwardly tries to grab onto the right words, “I remember being friends with you, then suddenly we’re...” he brings his index and middle fingers to his lips, trailing off. 

Chung exhales slowly, his breath quivering every step of the way out, head lifted up in silent prayer. Batting away his personal feelings, he finally grasps the teacups and moves to serve them. One for Elsword, who still stares at him with those _stupid_ cyan eyes when he can still clearly remember the days they were red, with apathy that makes it hard to believe this person was once so passionate, and one for himself. The chair makes a soft scritch against the floor when he pulls it out, taking a seat across from Elsword. 

Chung plays with a strand of his hair, lips pursed together, and looks Elsword directly in the eye. Just doing so makes his own tremble. 

“We,” Chung begins, yet immediately dryness rushes up to his throat and clogs it, stopping himself before he could go further. 

Elsword makes a small noise that sounds something like a soft ‘huh’? 

He clearly still remembers the times after they became more than just best friends. He clearly still remembers the times where they were just friends. But Elsword doesn’t anymore, but he saved the world, so it’s fine. Chung swallows thick, then finally speaks a full sentence.

“We were lovers.” Using the past tense about them pricked another, larger needle in his heart and it _hurt_ more than he anticipated, even as he tells himself this was okay with him. His voice drops shallow and quiet like the smallest ocean wave, forcing a smile that doesn’t quite match his eyes. He is looking everywhere but at Elsword; only the giant rock known as the currently restoring El would know why. 

The impassiveness of Elsword’s gaze hits harder than Eve’s Assault Spear. He inclines his head, not even an ounce of hurt registering on his face, only a blankness devoid of the fire Chung had fallen head over heels for. Almost robotically, Elsword reaches over and places his hand on Chung’s shoulder, reassuring him silently. Chung matches his eyes. Though a bright cyan in present, and growing more and more empty by the day, there was the barest, familiar light in his eye and the particular way his brows scrunched up around the bridge of his nose, evident as he rubbed the guardian’s shoulder ruggedly. 

“Since when?” 

“Lanox,” Chung tries to show Elsword his smile as best he can. It wobbles, trembles, shakes with fear of being dropped, but he manages. Elsword didn’t need any more weight on his chest. Not after their entire team blundered this far. Tripped up, fell, screwed themselves over to the point where the torch was, for the final time with Elsword’s unnatural synergy with the El, passed from El Lady to... El Lord, or something? “You asked me out to a restaurant in Lanox.” 

Elsword’s face is that of an intrigued child hearing a story for the first time. Like a fairy tale that seems imaginary and dream-like to even consider. Funny that Chung can still remember Elsword himself talking about their first date with details fresh and like it was not even yesterday, but just a few hours ago. The fondness and sincerity when he spoke of it, the way his eyes lit up. Chung himself could easily pinpoint the memory, lying down together after a long day when the sky was dark and a night lamp being their only illumination. Elsword himself having begun their trip down memory lane. When he rolls over on top of him suddenly, the scent of shampoo lingering in damp red hair and brushing a cream blonde strand away from his face with such a _warm_ and cheeky smile that would make Chung’s head spin and his hands putty, asking, 

_”Remember our first date?”_

And Chung could only really answer, dazzled by the disheveled, recently trimmed hair and fully matured look of him so close and so _content_ , how could he not? He would always remember being dragged out in the middle of digging into his steak. How Elsword had panicked suddenly, grabbed Chung by the hand, and quickly ducked out while slapping some random amount of ED on the table as soon as he saw Aisha walk in. How when they pulled to a stop behind a back alley, admitting to the guardian he didn’t tell anyone in the team he had a date and ended up with some investigative responsibility on his hands from Aisha last minute. But he didn’t want to cancel, for it already took Elsword so much effort to ask Chung in the first place, so to suddenly ask to move the time? Unthinkable. 

But Chung? He lapped it up. He laughed, found it ten times more endearing than the average person, and offered to both have a nice date and go information gathering at the same time. Elsword’s abashed face was a sight to see, heated with the blazing temperature of Lanox evenly before reluctantly agreeing and apologizing twenty times over about how this was absolutely not how he planned their date to go. It almost makes Chung laugh, recalling everything that happened. 

“And?” The present Elsword’s voice interrupts. Chung remembers that all of the red he loved is slowly turning into a walking monochrome value scale of white to cyan. 

Chung smiles a painful one, intertwined deeply with the fondness he could never rid himself of with these memories he’d hang onto for Elsword, retell over and over again each time the El’s power turns his memories into energy shards, and continue to destroy his own heart. 

“Aisha wanted you to go information scouting the day of, so we barely got to eat anything before we bailed because she walked in.” 

Impassiveness. It’s all he gets from Elsword these days, and today is no different.

“And you apologized, over and over,” Chung continues, “because you didn’t want to cancel our date even though Aisha gave you a job.” 

“It sounds like it took a lot of strength to ask you out,” Elsword nods, taking a sip of his tea and staring at the cup afterward. He looks down at the liquid with a furrowed brow, cold white hair falling over iced eyes as he peers into the tea’s warm cocoa color. He goes still, statuesquely rigid in his seat before he looks up and adds, “I can see why.” 

Chung is taken by surprise, utterly and without expectancy. Here in front of him was the man he considers—considered—still considers his— ... the man who led the El Search Party being sucked of all memory and emotion, seeing some kind of quality in Chung that must be of value to him as an individual. Elsword’s entire being was supposed to be dedicated to the El. That’s how it has to be, according to the El Masters. Some kind of pure desire to restore the El— the exact kind of purity needed to bring it back to its original form and Elsword was a loaded warehouse full of innate resolve. He asks, “What do you mean by that?” 

Elsword frowns as if the answer were obvious. And maybe it was obvious, once some time ago when Elsword was still full of fiery red and blushed brightly when he declared he would 'kiss him now' for their first kiss, but he wanted to hear what the Elsword in front of him now would say. 

If, this were by any chance, the only moment he could hear anything sweet from Elsword’s mouth again. 

“You’re really pretty,” Elsword says it so nonchalantly Chung almost expects him to shrug like it’s no big deal the moment after. But he doesn’t; he’s still and offers simply that, says it as it is. Somehow it hurts more to hear it rather than help Chung pretend they were still deeply in love and still had plans to see all of Elrios together after the war. 

What else? He wants to ask. What else do you think of me? He wants to know. Do you still remember what love feels like? The questions rise up but lodge themselves in his throat. 

“Do you still love me?” 

But one makes it out, and there it is, on the table between them. Chung swallows down the rest of the questions, knuckles turning white from the fists he’s formed underneath the table. He looks at the city outside the window but also watches the subtle manner in which those disgusting cyan eyes rise by only a fraction of a fraction. Elsword’s lips part, but no voice comes out. Chung allows him the time to think, resting his head against the window glass with downcast eyes. The city looked busy.

"I vaguely remember being in love with you,” he eventually says. The eyes of Elsword’s reflection are pointed towards Chung, “but I can’t love you now.”

Vaguely. Vaguely, vaguely, vaguely. And Elsword doesn't even answer the actual question. Chung thinks his heart has just been constrained and sucker-punched. Maybe he never should have asked. Maybe he should have been content with his bitter and heavy heart, maybe never asked the question or maybe something else, maybe something to stop the freezing chill he feels spread in his heart. Chung swallows thickly, maintaining as cool a face as possible. “Because of your duty?” 

White brows scrunch together. The grip on his teacup tightens for a moment before it relaxes. “Chung,” he says, “I’ll eventually combine with the El and fully restore it. After I do, Elrios won’t need to sacrifice another El Lady.” 

“I know,” Chung quips with a trembling lip, forcing himself to not glimpse at even the knight’s mirror reflection, “I know. You have to do this to save everyone.” 

A one-worded response, subservient to the El and for the El. “Yeah.”

Turning away from the window, Chung offers a little more tea to him. Elsword shakes his head, quietly refusing while he picks up his teacup again. They drink in peaceful silence that feels undeserved, Elsword ever so oblivious as Chung shifts in his seat. Eventually, Elsword sets his cup down, a small pool still remaining at the bottom. He fixates on that teacup with furrowed brows. Chung raises an eyebrow of his own, lifting the teacup just shy of his mouth.

“Can I kiss you?” 

And then Chung stops before he tips the cup. He falls short, a centimeter or two away, eyes darting to see if Elsword has suddenly got red eyes and red hair again or if he were waking from a dream or— nope. Cyan and white, but he definitely heard right. He wants to scream. 

“Why? I thought you said you didn't--” 

“I can't because of my duties to the El. But,” Elsword says, expressionless even though his words are drenched in sympathy, “you look like you’re hurting a lot because of me.”

Chung only gives a tight-lipped smile and sets his cup down for the umpteenth time. Hurting? He can’t even remember the last time he felt truly happy while awake. He had to cry himself to sleep or drink himself unconscious for weeks. His favorite hobby these days was sleeping, through tequila or tears be damned. Because at least when he slept, he could go back to fantasies of holding hands and snuggling up to an Elsword who never died and running across the beach under the sunset and soft kisses under the moonlight and how it could have been if he or Elsword put a ring on it or maybe even a ring on each other and how lovely it might’ve been if they married in a grand white wedding and swore to be together from now on. 

“Hurting will never be enough to explain how I feel.”

The Sacrifice of Elrios leans forward tentatively, a frown hanging on his visage as if he were worried he might offend, hands interlocked with each other, "I didn't realize the 'Elsword' in my memories was that precious to you." 

"You're precious to the entire El Search Party," Chung interjects sharply, though he winces at the accidental venom.

And yet Elsword continues not to feel anything. He simply observes like a fool before adding, "That's why I’m trying to understand what made me from before so important to El Search Party." 

Chung stands up and takes a step forward towards Elsword. He has an inkling. A vague idea, writing itself into their story with detail. Each movement they make only heads towards that unfavorable conclusion. He dares wishes he could do more to stop it, but alas, cannot. 

Another step. 

“I can kiss you,” Chung finally murmurs. Elsword watches every step he takes, unfaltering even in white and blue, eyes chasing after the guardian as he unlocks his hands and turns in his seat. 

His feet stop just short of Elsword’s, bringing his hand up to rest against the back of his chair, “You’re not doing this because you pity me, are you?” 

“I’ve forgotten the day you—or was it me?— confessed,” Elsword answers with a shake of his head, “and I’ll give my life to the El for everyone to be safe. From the memories Master Solace gave me, it won't be long before my body gives in to the El and I’ll forget everything about the El Search Party. My memories already feel so blurry.” 

Reaching over, Chung combs over a white strand of hair, despising the way it faded to cyan. “Then...?” 

A phantom touch. Chung looks down at the hand still resting by his side. He suspiciously eyes Elsword, notices how Elsword’s own periphery was, at the same beat as Chung’s towards their hands. 

“Before I give what’s left of me as 'Elsword' to the El,” he says, looking up with a spark in his brilliantly turquoise irises. The light is weak, faint, but with a resolve that Chung hadn’t seen in months and perhaps he is so parched that even that small glimpse of familiarity sends his heart hammering in ways he thought he wouldn’t feel again, “and before my memories fade away," there, Chung feels a nudge again. At the very tips of his fingers, it comes and goes as a fleeting wisp. When he looks down, he notices Elsword's fingers had barely, subtly, knocked into his own, "Chung, for one last time," 

Elsword leans in, tips his head up from his seat. Chung tilts his head down but doesn't quite bend. 

"I want to feel what it was like to love you.” 

Chung wishes he could act surprised, or have his thoughts race towards a glimmer of light at the far end of the tunnel, or anything else other than the crinkle of his eyes and a hardened grip on the chair. He purses his lips together, makes a cursory pass at their hands a second time, and slowly draws out a long exhale through his nose. "Love is more than just a kiss, Els."

"Even if it's just physical, I want to connect those feelings to the memories I have of us to something.”

And he doesn't falter. Of course, he has to make this harder than it has to be. He thinks he gets it, painful as it is to realize. A last, lingering mark on him before he forgets everything else and only has a recent memory of kissing a guy with cream hair and paw-printed eyes. Before he fades away, before he disappears, maybe there can be a piece of evidence left behind. That at some time, at some point, there was love. 

"...Okay," Chung obliges. He shifts the arm draped over the chair to loop around Elsword's shoulder, steps between his feet to sit on his lap, and carefully brings his other hand to hold the back of the other's neck. Elsword remains unmoving, blinks maybe once or twice, but his hands move almost naturally around the guardian's waist. How long had it been since they held each other like this? Even as a shell of who he once was, Elsword was warm. If he only closed his eyes and dreamed hard enough, would it feel just like before? 

_"I-I'm going to kiss you now!" Fists balling up the bedsheets provided by the inn, Elsword declares this with maddening crimson dusting his cheeks and a fierce determination. Chung, seated criss-cross in front of him, matches the color all the way to his ears, stammering, nodding, making his own remark of, "I-I'll kiss you back!"_

He gently pushes Elsword's head forward from the back of his neck, bringing himself closer at the same time. "I'm going," 

_"Remember our first date?"_

Obviously. And he remembers their first kiss, the first time they hugged each other, and the first time they held hands, and the first time they met, and the first time they shared a tent, and there could have been so many more firsts but now there was no chance of those happening. But there would be a last, and he sees it in the jaded cyan eyes only an inch in front of him, waiting. Still, even if for the last time, Elsword wished for a feeling like love to carry until he became a complete shell. If there was anything Chung could leave behind for him, then, foolishly, it would be love.

Even if there was nothing left to be loved at the end, if he could impart such a feeling on Elsword before the rest of his body crumbled into El energy and Elrios became whole again... 

"...to kiss you now," Chung murmurs with a quivering voice, barely above a whisper. Elsword nods subtly, eyes locked onto him, then tilts his head, closes his eyes, and Chung properly meets him in the middle. 

(He had hoped Elsword might recognize his words, respond with, "I'll kiss you back," but he's a fool for hoping.)

It feels like he might die. Were kisses supposed to feel like this? Like it was going to be his last, a final farewell to the one before him. It lasts long, but the way Elsword's lips seem to activate a muscle memory that readjusts to Chung’s, how Elsword shifts just a little and they lock perfectly together like the kisses from before Elsword sacrificed. A natural adjustment Elsword doesn't even know he does, but Chung recognizes it and tries not to let grief break out of his throat as he sinks deeper into the kiss. Even as he feels as if his chest were splintering and shattering into reduced remains, he readjusts his hands to hold his first and dying love gently by the sides of his face, tries to put every kind of emotion into one singular press of the lips, tries not to let himself get distracted by useless desperation when Elsword pulls him a tiny smidge closer. 

They part, then Elsword whispers, "I'm sorry," and they close the space between a second, third, fourth time even, and the only thing Chung can do is shake his head and blink away the wetness in his eyes because he doesn't dare trust himself to speak anymore. He gradually presses himself against Elsword, tries to kiss deeper, tries to do it as if he could convince Elsword to come back to everyone if he did it well enough.

(That doesn’t work.) 

He's lost track by the time they hear a knock on the door. Elsword breaks away first, nudges Chung to climb off his lap, and finds one of the El's priests behind it. Elsword, with his reds no longer there and replaced with white and cyan, looks back at Chung. Chung takes his seat back at the circle table again, pulling the chair against the wall and laying his head against it. He tries to smile as encouragingly as he can. Elsword saved the world, right? So it’s fine.

"You have a duty to the El now, don't you?" He manages to say with a strained voice. His vision is blurring, watered up and leaving Chung wondering if Elsword's memories looked like this. 

"Yeah,” he lowers his eyes with guilt, hesitating and lifting his head up, eyes focused on Chung with scrutiny for a long moment. Though he remains where he stands at the door, he waves with uncertainty, “I'll be going now... and I'm sorry again, Chung. Please understand my choice." 

Saying words like that; Elsword sounds like the El Lady. He hadn’t before, that or Chung had never noticed until now. There is no room left for rebuttal nor any reason to, Chung opting to keep his mouth shut as he watches his ex-lover leave with some stupid guy in a robe and a veil over their face. He sighs, slumps in his chair, and takes a sip of tea with one hand. Then he sets it down afterward, pushes it away to sit next to Elsword's unfinished cup before laying his head on the table. Buries his face in his arms, face down, and swallows thickly like the lump in his throat could fill the hollow emptiness in his chest.

Chung thinks he might be tired. Maybe it was time to rest for the day. Should he rest tomorrow, too? Not like he would be seeing Elsword again. The next time they meet he would be seeing the new Guardian of the El or some bullshit like that. Or a rock. Tears are pooling up in his eyes already, memory refreshed and hateful of how Elsword still tasted just as sweet, but the Elsword that remains now is but a shell of his former self, and at the rate which the El was consuming him, that was going to be the last time he could experience it. And knowing it to be the last time stung, knowing this was something he had to burn into his memory or no one else would ever remember what it was like to love someone like Elsword. He's really tired, actually. He wonders if feeling tired is supposed to hurt this much. A weak sob escapes him, then another, then all of his efforts to contain himself crumble to pieces quickly washed up by the sea. Tears spill and stain his arms, shoulders shaking and body convulsing in large, choked up hiccups as he curls in on himself, broken cries becoming loud and uncontrolled.

_“Hey, Chung?” Elsword grins, braiding the blonde’s hair into what was arguably the worst braid humanity had ever seen, “I’m glad you’re by my side. I love you a lot.”_

_“I love you too,” Chung smiles back, bright and leaning into the knight’s calloused hands in his hair. Hearing sweet words like that from someone as shy and awkward as Elsword was euphoric, sending his heart racing and suddenly the sky is so pretty, and it’s such a nice day today. Would it be okay to ask for more? No, he shouldn’t..._

Maybe he should have. Chung thinks he should have asked for more. If he did, then would this feeling hurt less? He doesn’t know— but then again, he doesn’t know the answer to anything anymore. He’s lost the one most precious to him to a rock, and the remnants left on his lips with an apology only serve to drive the dagger in his heart further. But it’s fine. The world is saved, so this is fine. It’s fine to continue like this because it was for the good of Elrios.

That night, he falls asleep through tears.

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to James Morrison and Nelly Furtado's Broken Strings and ASTRO's Again while writing this, and I've always toyed with the idea of Elsword taking the place of Lady El instead. This has been done for some time now but I decided I liked it enough to upload it.
> 
> If you've read 'when galaxies ignite', one of my other elschung fics, this could be read as an attachment to that but this was written as a stand-alone. So. Do with that what you will


End file.
